kareth
Etymology
From Hebrew כָּרֵת.
kareth means extirpation or cutting off, a form of punishment for sin, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish writings. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 96 out of 100.
Why “kareth” is a great word
KARETH — [Noun] A divine punishment in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish law involving spiritual or physical extirpation, a being cut off from one’s people. From Hebrew כָּרֵת (kārēth), meaning 'to cut off' or 'to exterminate'. Unlike excommunication, an institutional decree of expulsion, or the death penalty, a sentence carried out by human hands, *kareth* is a metaphysical severance, a silent excision from the lineage of the living by the divine ledger. It is the sudden stillness in a tent where life should be stirring, the name that vanishes from the generational chant, the branch that falls from the family tree not by storm but by an unseen, desiccating wind—the ultimate terror of being judged not by peers, but by the universe itself.
noun
- Extirpation or cutting off, a form of punishment for sin, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish writings.